


Confession

by alittlenutjob



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M, TMP Secret Santa Fic Exchange 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 21:02:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2887805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlenutjob/pseuds/alittlenutjob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I liked the original prompt, but it may have taken a real turn. Sorry, you got saddled with an angst monster, ser_pez. I hope you like it anyway. Merry Christmas, everyone.</p><p>Prompt: <i>Gingerbread house construction. Smut would be lovely, but if someone isn't down with writing smut, I get it.</i> </p><p>Mature. You were warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confession

**Author's Note:**

  * For [booksandroses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksandroses/gifts).



The snow started before they left for Mass. The long trek to Staten and back gave the storm enough time to brew and the sparse needles of snow falling in the too-cold morning had given way to wet clumps, falling like wadded tissues and drifting awkwardly at the edges of the city streets. She'd worn boots out that morning, giving in for once to practicality for the sake of peace, but Mindy's tights had been nowhere near thick enough to withstand the cold wind and general sloshiness of the walk back from the station. The cold settled in deep, and she was shivering hard by the time they made it home.

There had been a brief period, right after the mix up about Peter's apartment, when they'd both seemed to be skirting around “my place or your place” a little too carefully, but about the time the Christmas tree went up, the weird energy started to fade away. Christmas was a spectator sport for Mindy, and whilst she enjoyed the trappings, she didn't really have traditions. Danny had spent the better part of an evening explaining why popping your own popcorn and stringing it was superior to the glittering tinsel she'd been eyeing up online, and even longer ranting about blueberry candy canes and all the other nonsense that went on these days when a traditional candy cane got the job done. She had kind of enjoyed sticking cloves into oranges though, and she had to admit falling into his routines seemed to calm him, which felt important right now.

“You're awfully quiet.” Mindy sat down on the sofa where he was reading the parts of the paper he hadn't gotten to before church. She'd exchanged her dress and heels for a cozy sweatsuit the second they'd walked in the door and she was warming up slowly but surely, but the only concession he'd made to comfort was the loosening of his tie. He hadn't said anything about going out again this afternoon, but he hadn't really said much at all since getting home.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Father Francis let Danny confess on Sundays when the confessional wasn't usually open and Mindy had long since grown used to the way church affected Danny's mood. The longer she'd known him the more sure she was that this was his version of Meg Ryan movie night. She'd never say that to him of course, but she recognized the way his body changed after he'd been on his knees a while. (Another thing she'd never say.) It wasn't that he was lighter for confession, in fact sometimes it felt like he carried something more coming home than he did when they'd left the house, but the quiet way he moved through a Sunday afternoon made her think that it was a necessity, the thing that allowed him to live through the rest of the week. Today was different though. Danny was like a ghost.

“Confession went pretty badly, huh? You tell him about that thing we did with the first gingerbread house? I bet you have 10,000 Hail Marys for that.” Mindy nudged him gently with her shoulder.

Danny smiled weakly. “That's not how that works.”

“I know.” Mindy cleared her throat and tried another topic. “So are you doing a new one?”

“A new what?”

“Gingerbread house. Are you making another one for the thing at your mom's house tomorrow?” Mindy stood and made her way to the window, gazing out at the street. It was early for the traffic to have officially died down, but news of the snow storm must have made its way around and people had decided to hunker down early. She enjoyed the pageantry of the Christmas thing, but she actually hated this time of year. She was a sunshine person, and the light was fading fast. They'd plunge into another long night, and even though she enjoyed a night stuck at home with her sweetheart, she didn't know if that's what they would get. Not if he wasn't going to talk.

“Yeah. I built already. I just gotta decorate it.”

“You want any help? If you need some candy, I'm your girl.”

Danny turned to look at her, something unreadable brewing behind those dark eyes again that made her hold her breath. Then he smiled. “Yeah.”

Happy to have any reason to draw him out of himself, Mindy raced for the bedroom. She hated it when he spent too much time in his own head. Years of trying to reach him, the real him, made her infinitely frustrated when he withdrew, even if she knew the final result was a more patient, less neurotic Danny. Maybe she was just struggling with it now because it forced her to think about how quiet he'd been lately in general. She knew he was struggling too, trying to show his support for her fellowship and hide the worse parts of himself that feared it was a sign of something else. She could feel him vibrating with it the night he handed her the letter he'd written for her. She could see the worry cloud his eyes when he didn't think she knew he was looking, and sometimes he'd go so still, like she was a deer ready to bolt if he made any sudden moves.

“I've got Skittles in my purse,” she called through to him as she searched through the drawer on her side of the bed. He'd long since stopped trying to talk her out of keeping food in the bedroom, and she knew there were definitely some blueberry candy canes in here that despite their 'bunch of new fangled garbage' designation would make the icing snow really sparkle once they were crushed up. “Do think think there's time to go to the store before the storm gets too bad?”

“Min?” He'd barely made a sound as he'd approached and she jerked with surprise, slicing a knuckle on the edge of the drawer runner.

“Shit!” The candy canes hit the floor with a cellophane rustle as she pulled her hand away. “When did you get there?”

“I'm sorry!” Danny rushed to her side, taking her hand delicately and inspecting the cut. He pulled her up with him as he stood, and marched her to the bathroom where he just pointed at the edge of the bathtub and began to search through cabinets for something to patch her up.

She sat down where he'd indicated and inspected the cut herself. “Why the hell is your furniture sharp?”

“Sorry,” he mumbled as he knelt beside her to clean her hand up. Sometimes obstetrics seemed like a strange choice for such a guy's guy, but seeing the delicacy and focus that went into a small task like the careful cleaning and bandaging of a minor injury showed plainly the depth of his care for people. The things he'd written about her were true of him too, and she didn't tell him often enough.

“You're a good doctor, Danny.”

The corner of his mouth turned up in a bashful smile. “Thanks.”

“Maybe you should have applied for the fellowship. I'd have written you a recommendation for sure.”

Danny's grin faded and the haunted look he'd worn all morning returned. “Mindy, can I tell you something?”

“Okaaay.” Whatever it was he'd been swallowing all morning was on its way out now, and his face was so serious she was afraid of where this might be going. Did he know about the credit card statements?

“You know your fellowship?”

 _Is that all?_ Mindy placed her non-injured hand lightly on his chest. He was breathing too fast, but she'd be lying if she said she hadn't had a panic or two about the repercussions of physical distance in a relationship that relied so heavily on their physical connection. It had always been true, and maybe it would always be, that Danny was much better at showing his feelings than saying.

“Danny, you don't have to say it. I know you're all stressed out about this. Don't be. You know, there are some weeks when we barely see each other anyway because of work, this is just more... intense. I'll fly back for holidays, you can come visit me any time. I'll become super smart and then I'll come home and be your sugar mama. We'll be fine. I promise.”

“It's not that.” He sucked in a huge breath. “I was the one who messed up your first reference from Ledreau.”

Mindy's heart skipped a beat. “You did what?”

“He was gonna do your letter and I told him not to bother, 'cause you weren't serious about it.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” She pushed him, harder than she'd meant to. She was instantly a little sorry, but a small part of herself was oddly satisfied by the shock on his face.

Danny sat back against the wall opposite her perch at the edge of the bathtub and smiled sadly. “A lot of things.”

The pure fury that had gripped Mindy drained away. He'd admitted a long time ago that when he and Christina had fought she'd push him to try and provoke him when he wasn't reacting enough to whatever it was that made her so angry at the time. He'd held on to that a long time, and the one thing that made Mindy sure that she and Danny were going to survive any fight was how quickly he'd rise to bait, how loud he'd yell, how unwilling he was to let her just walk all over him.

“Why, Danny?”

“I thought it was a scheme,” he looked up nervously. “You know, to get me to propose?”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You thought I couldn't just want something without it being a scheme?” Her anger flared back twice as bright and she felt an angry sob bubbling up inside her. She was going to cry and he was going to get the wrong idea about her reaction, which made her even angrier. 

“It came out of nowhere, Min! I thought we were okay, and suddenly you want to leave me and run off to California. What was I supposed to think?”

“You were supposed to think 'Good for her, I'm so proud of my hot girlfriend.'” Her voice shook as she spoke, and she knew in that instant why Christina had gotten so angry that she'd provoke him. Mindy felt like she was losing control and he just seemed resigned. 

“You're right. I'm sorry, I just panicked. I asked Peter and he said the engagement thing...Listen Ledreau wasn't even gonna write you a real recommendation. The only word he had to describe you was 'Indian.' Me interfering is probably what saved your application.”

“You know what? I don't really think I have anything I can say to that. You keep justifying this to yourself, see how far that gets you. I'm going home.”

“Home?” The single syllable tripped out of him like he'd been punched in the gut. “Mindy, it's Christmas.”

“It sure is. I don't have to spend it with someone who doesn't believe in me.” Cradling her injured hand, she stomped through to the bedroom and peeled off her stupid comfy clothes. She didn't expect cabs or trains would still run in this weather, but with the new boots she could probably make the trek home as long as she put on a couple of extra layers. She found the jeans she was looking for in the closet and she was sure she had leggings in the pink chest of drawers, but she might have to steal one of Danny's long sleeved under shirts to go back under the sweatshirt. As she stood there in the closet, cocooned in the comforting warmth and mingled scents of their life together - lavender laundry detergent and leather polish and the light hint of his cologne that hung around the collars of his jackets - she knew the shiver that ran down her spine was only partially attributable to her state of undress. She let the sheer misery of the situation wash over her. It wasn't just the fight, but the implications of a fight like this right before she might be leaving for a very long time. This was not the fly-off-the-handle, stubborn, passionate Danny she knew. This guy would just let her go.

He managed to catch her by surprise again as she she sank into that awful feeling, causing her to jump. “Min?”

She straightened her spine and pushed past him to the bedroom and plopped on the edge of the bed to pull her jeans on. The package in his arms was too big to ignore, but he was an idiot if he thought she could be bought off now.

“Please let me finish.” He laid the box next to her and backed away. “Open it.”

“Danny, I don't think we should do this right now. I've got to leave now to beat the storm.”

Silently he opened the box himself, drawing out a black leather backpack. “I do believe in you.”

Mindy searched his eyes. Why was he like this? When she looked at him she saw the guy who'd learned and performed a dance to a song he didn't even like rather than spit out how he actually felt, and the guy who'd concocted an elaborate alter ego instead of just saying 'I'm sorry.' She realized as she looked at him she was much angrier about the fact that he didn't talk to her than the fact that that he'd made a stupid assumption and had to scramble to fix his fuck up. She thought they'd moved past that the night on the fire escape, or at least started to break through the ice.

She took the backpack from him, turning it over in her hands and running her fingertips along the seams. “Why'd you tell me now, Danny?”

He picked the box up and tossed it on top of his dresser before sitting down next to her. “Confession.”

“You only told me the truth because you're afraid God would be mad at you?”

“No. I knew I had to tell you about it, I just didn't think I could do it.”

“So you got me a backpack?”

“Yeah.” His smile was sad, a little fragile around the edges. "You can't go to school without a new backpack."

“I get it,” she said softly. His little truths always hurt so much more than his big truths. Her anger drained away slowly, her heart heavy now even though her fingers still itched for a fight. She laid her head on his shoulder. “Why does it always take some sort of major incident or a rando priest to get you to talk to me?”

“I don't know. I don't want it to be like this though. Not if you're going away.”

Mindy turned her face into his chest and breathed him in. Distance doesn't make communication problems better, something she'd learned the hard way with Casey, and something she didn't want to repeat. She and Casey just didn't have any dreams left in common, and while it was sad to admit it and painful to let go, she'd done what she had to do to find a better future. The problem was that she felt like Danny was her future, but if wouldn't fight for it she didn't know how long she could carry it by herself. “Can I tell _you_ something?”

“Yeah.”

“When the fellowship came up I almost didn't apply because I thought you were going to propose. I thought it would get in the way of our future, and I thought if I put one more obstacle in our way you might just back away again. Then you didn't do it.” She tried to clear the uncomfortable lump in her throat. “Maybe when I asked Jean about the application I was kind of thinking 'If he really doesn't see me as his future, then I will make one of my own.'”

Danny pulled away suddenly, holding her away from him to look at her face. “Min...”

Mindy shrugged his hands off her shoulders. “Shh. You got your confession. This is mine.”

She didn't wait to continue in case he protested. “When I started actually filling the application out, I realized that I actually did want it. For me. It wasn't a scheme, I just knew that if I asked you what you thought about it instead of just doing it you'd talk me out of it.”

“You don't know that.” His voice was soft and just a bit sullen, but she knew it had to be hard to hear, because it was hard for her to say.

“Maybe not, but Jean said something that made me think, about putting my ambitions away for someone else, and I don't want to do that.”

“You did it for Casey.”

Mindy flinched. “Casey asked.”

“What if I asked?” He was staring at his own hands, and she wished he'd look up at her so she could see if he was being serious.

“Are you? Are you asking me to give up my fellowship to stay here with you?”

Danny looked up slowly, his eyes scanning the room before settling on her own. He shook his head.

Mindy let go of the breath she'd been holding and leaned forward to kiss him softly. “Thank you.”

His arms were warm as they wrapped her tight and held her close. He was breathing too hard, so she just held on and let him breathe through it. He stroked her hair as she buried her face in his neck and inhaled, trying hard not to give in to fruitless tears. His hand stroked lower and lower and she knew he was about to make another type of confession. She touched her lips to his collarbone, giving him permission to continue, to show her how he was feeling the only way he could sometimes. His hands lifted her face to his and he kissed her slowly, thoroughly, in the way that his lips and tongue would fail him if he just said how he felt. She let herself sink into it as he undressed her, laid her onto the bed. The low winter sun was sinking fast behind thick clouds, but the eerie light reflected from the snowfall kept the room lit enough to watch the way his eyes burned as he undressed himself and laid down with her.

The chill that had followed her in from the storm slowly dissipated under his hands as he traced the lines of her body with his fingers like he needed to memorize her, pausing now and again to follow the lines again with his lips. Too impatient by nature, she'd probably never get used to his kind of slow lovemaking. Her eagerness often overrode his slow burn, but tonight she let him take his time, opening to him slowly as he coaxed the heat from her.

As he made love to her she wondered if maybe what she gave him wasn't enough. She needed the words and got the gestures and he seemed to only ever hear what she was saying when her actions met his expectations. It was exactly what she feared the most about leaving, that without the heat to seal them together they might just fall apart. Later, when they lay breathless and entangled she tried to make him understand. “We can't fight like this when I'm gone,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“You have to tell me what you're feeling.”

“I know.”

“You won't be able to end a fight like this.”

“I...” He stopped and just nodded. “This isn't a distraction.”

“I know,” she replied.

* * *

 

His side of the bed was cold when she woke. Bright sunshine streamed through the windows, and the wind that had rattled the windows much of the night had died down to be replaced by ordinary street sounds. She pulled on underwear and padded through to the bathroom to find something to soothe the painful throbbing in her hand. Once again she was confronted by the subtle ways their lives had come together, and she pictured the bathroom without her robe hanging next to his, or her mascara in the soap dish. What did he see when he stood here? Had the slow fade of their life together already begun? Would there be something to come back to?

She wrapped herself in the robe and took the bottle of ibuprofen through to the bedroom with her, swallowing a couple before scooping up the abandoned candy canes and following the scent of coffee into the kitchen.

Danny sat at the kitchen table, partially assembled gingerbread house stood in front of him, bags of candy scattered around him. The strange shape of the construction took a moment to register. “Is that a palm tree?”

Danny looked up with a bashful smile. “Yeah. I wanted to do the Memorial Church, but after we messed up the first one there wasn't time. But I thought a palm tree would count.”

“What Memorial Church?”

“At Stanford?”

She walked around the table to sit down next to him. “You made a California gingerbread house?”

“Yeah.”

“Your mom is going to hate it.”

“I know. She wanted a replica of her house.” He slid his hand over hers, careful not to squeeze her tender fingers. “Mindy, I see you in my future. I'm sorry you thought I didn't. That's my fault for not saying it, but I promise you are my future.”

Mindy laid her head on his shoulder. She still didn't know what kind of future they would have when she came back, but in the very least she hoped that he'd be able to keep talking to her while they figured it out. “Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I did do a funny thing if you need a lighter antidote: [Friday Night, Date Night](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2850176)  
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
